Spam Sells Drugs From Fake Pharmacies and Infects Computers Too

78% of all email is spam, and of that 66% is fake pharmacy spam. But the danger isn’t a clogged inbox: it’s dangerous fake medicine and computers disabled by viruses.

While more than 50% of all email is fake pharmacy spam, this is better than it used to be. Drug spam alone used to be 85% to 80% of all email sent before government began cracking down on it. The nuisance of fake online pharmacy email clogging inboxes however disguised a greater danger, reports The Street.

Medicines purchased from fake pharmacies advertising through email are not legitimate, says Michael Lee, senior software engineer for Symantec. Buyers can be receiving counterfeit medication of “varying dosage or colored tables that are just placebos. At worst, they’re contaminated with something potentially dangerous,” reports The Street.

“In terms of the numbers of malicious emails sent, pharmaceutical spam is far ahead of other threats. Additionally, no other email threat can cause physical harm to human health,” said Lee. “Therefore I’d class this as the biggest email threat.”

Even without purchasing online, medicine spam can contain links to malware or the installation of executable files with viruses and Trojans.

Says Michael Gregg, COO of Superior Solutions, “Most of this spam is designed to trick the user into clicking on a link or going to a website that will infect their computer.”

By S. Imber